


On Dating

by seekingsquake



Series: My Family, My Friends [4]
Category: She-Hulk, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, implied child/spousal abuse, implied past abusive relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 17:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3578421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve doesn't know how Jen ended up in his kitchen, but he doesn't mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Dating

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: a couple panels from a comic book where She-Hulk is flirting with The Thing, and Hulk puts a stop to it.  
> All characters belong to Marvel.  
> Please do not repost or reupload this piece anywhere without consent. If you ask, I'm sure we can work something out :]

Steve doesn’t know how Jennifer got into his kitchen since he’d asked JARVIS to keep his floor locked down, but there she is. He leaves his bag by the wall and enters quietly because she’s got her head down on the marble top of the island and her arms folded in her lap. “Jen?”

She jolts awake, almost falls off her stool, but collects herself rather quickly. She smiles sleepily up at him, and then understanding hits her. “Oh! Sorry! I know you had your floor on lockdown while you were away; I shouldn’t have come here. I just needed... No, I’m sorry, I’ll go.”

Steve stops her before she can fully stand, smiles at her, eases her back down on the stool. “No, it’s okay, I don’t really mind. I trust you. Are you alright though?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I just needed to be somewhere Bruce wouldn’t hunt me down.”

Well. That wasn’t something he thought he’d ever hear Jennifer say. “Bruce is giving you trouble?”

She sighs heavily, then sort of laughs. “No, not really. Just everyone else.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bruce is less like my cousin and more like my big brother, you know? And sometimes he takes that role a little seriously and it puts him at odds with other people, and then I get frustrated, and then he feels bad, and I just needed some time to myself before I deal with him.”

Steve blinks once, twice, then thinks back to the way Bucky was with his kid siblings and laughs. “Somebody ask you on a date?”

“No!” Jen responds, also laughing. “They didn’t get the chance to! Bruce chased ‘im off before he could even get that far!”

“Well that seems a little quick, doesn’t it?” Steve asks, finally taking a seat beside her.

Jen shrugs. “I made stupid choices about men when I was in high school and through my first year of college, and I think it scarred Bruce more than it scarred me. He’s still worried that I’ll put myself in a bad spot, I think. It’s funny though, because he knows it’s irrational. He’s just…,”

“Thinking about his mother,” Steve finishes, and Jennifer nods. Bruce never talked much about his family, but everybody sort of knew. Jen knew better than anyone. 

“Nothing can hurt me now, though,” she whispers, and it’s the first time since she came to the Tower that Steve’s seen any sort of crack in her. “I’d kill anyone who laid a hand on me faster than Bruce could find out it’d happened.”

At first Steve’s a little surprised, but it doesn’t last too long. He may only know two people who have Banner blood in them, but they both have fierce personalities and a strong instinct of self preservation underneath all their apparent softness. And if Jennifer is anything like Bruce (which she really is), she won’t let herself be caught in the same trap twice. “Maybe next time you see Tony flirting with Bruce you should chase him off, give Bruce a taste of his own medicine.”

Jen pauses, then laughs, loud and big and free, her hand on Steve’s arm and her head thrown back. Her hair is long and dark and beautiful, and her hand is warm against Steve’s skin, and her laugh is something magical in and of itself. But he thinks about Bruce, who is rapidly becoming a good friend of his, and he thinks about how tough this whole scenario must be on Jen, and he thinks about all the men that pad after her whenever she goes out. He shifts his arm out from her reach. She doesn’t seem to notice, and she smiles up at him anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by Werevampiwolf, my bff and beta.


End file.
